Public Statement by Chair of Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict

After the examination of the eighth report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Sudan (S/2024/443) and the adoption of conclusions on the report, the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict agreed to address the following messages through a public statement by the Chair of the Working Group.

To all parties to armed conflict in the Sudan:

• Strongly condemning all violations and abuses that continue to be committed against children by all parties to the conflict in the Sudan and noting with grave concern the dramatic increase in verified violations from 2022 to 2023 following the outbreak of hostilities in Sudan; urging all parties to immediately end and prevent all violations and abuses against children, including those involving the recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, abduction, rape and other forms of sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access and urging all parties to comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law; 
• Expressing concern at the dramatic impact of the rapid escalation of hostilities in Sudan since April 2023 on children; noting with concern that many of the institutions established to protect children and to follow-up on the implementation of child protection laws ceased to function or are functioning with extremely constrained capacity in limited areas of the country, imposing further barriers on children for the reporting of abuses and violations of their rights; further expressing concern that 14 million children were in need of humanitarian aid and protection assistance, lacking access to food, shelter, electricity, education and healthcare, and safe drinking water; calling on all parties to abide by their obligations under international law in line with Security Council resolution 2736 (2024), and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilian objects including objects critical to the delivery of essential services to the civilian population; 
• Calling upon all parties to further implement the previous conclusions of the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict in the Sudan (S/AC.51/2022/6); 
• Expressing serious concern about the significant access constraints facing the United Nations country task force on monitoring and reporting in the Sudan, relating to insecurity in and access to conflict-affected areas, access restrictions imposed by parties to conflict, as well as prolonged communications blackouts in some areas, which presented challenges to the verification of violations and abuses against children, and that, as noted in the report of the Secretary-General, the information contained in the report does not reflect the full extent of violations and abuses committed against children in the Sudan, and in this regard urging parties to the conflict and neighbouring countries to ensure United Nations personnel safe and unhindered access to territories under their control, including for monitoring and reporting purposes; 
• Stressing the importance of accountability for all violations and abuses against children in armed conflict and stressing that all perpetrators must be brought to justice and held accountable without undue delay, including through timely and systematic investigations of all allegations of violations and abuses against children, and, as appropriate, prosecution and conviction, and to ensure that all victims have access to gender-sensitive, age-appropriate, disability-inclusive, non-discriminatory and comprehensive child protection services, including psychosocial support and healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health services, access to education and vocational training, livelihood support, social reintegration, access to justice, and specialized services for child victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence; including through strengthening judicial and law enforcement capacities by recommencing national efforts to apply and strengthen the existing Child Act; 
• Stressing that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration, and that the specific needs and vulnerabilities of boys and girls, as well as children with disabilities and displaced children, should be duly considered, when planning and carrying out actions concerning children in situations of armed conflict; 
• Strongly condemning the increase and continued recruitment and use of children, including children as young as seven, to fulfil various roles, including in combat, to guard checkpoints, and in support roles; strongly urging all parties to adopt and effectively implement procedures on the screening and age assessment of recruits, and to immediately release, without preconditions, all children from their ranks, hand them over to relevant civilian child protection actors, ensuring that such children are primarily treated as victims, call upon the Sudanese authorities to continue implementing the 2018 operating procedures for the release and handover of children associated with armed groups, and on all parties to the conflict to end and prevent further recruitment and use of children, including the re-recruitment of children, in line with international humanitarian law and international human rights law, in particular the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to which Sudan is a State party; 
• Expressing concern about the deprivation of liberty of children for their association or alleged association with armed groups and on national security grounds and welcoming in this regard the release of the detained children by the Government of Sudan’s State Council for Child Welfare in Kassala, and the release of the 47 detained children by the Rapid Support Forces in West Darfur following an intervention by the country task force, and emphasizing the importance of treating children associated with armed groups, including those who may have committed crimes, primarily as victims of recruitment and use, to ensure their full reintegration through family- and community-based gender-sensitive reintegration programmes, access to healthcare including mental health and psychosocial support, and education programmes, guided by the Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (the Paris Principles) which the Sudan has endorsed, as well as the national strategic plan for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration for children who have previously been involved in armed movements, as well as raising awareness and working with communities to avoid stigmatization of those children and facilitate their return and reintegration, and to ensure that, where children face prosecution for allegedly committing crimes, those prosecutions are carried out with respect for the rights and best interests of the child; 
• Expressing deep concern at the high number of children killed or maimed, including as a result of crossfire, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, aerial bombardment, shelling and explosive ordinance, particularly in the context of intercommunal violence and the fighting between parties to the conflict at the local level between a range of actors; calling upon all parties to respect their obligations under international law, to cease the killing and maiming of children, and to end immediately and definitively the indiscriminate use of explosive devices, including in populated areas, and urging all parties to immediately take all feasible preventive and mitigating actions necessary to avoid and minimize harm and better protect children during military operations, including by refraining from the use of explosive devices that cause death or injury to children and from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas; calling upon the Government to fully implement its obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction; 
• Expressing grave concern at the high number of cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated against children, while noting that the majority of verified cases were attributed to the RSF, recognizing that sexual violence remained underreported, due to the fear of reprisals, stigma, impunity, blame and alienation from communities, and barriers to services; urging all parties to take immediate and specific measures to put an end to and prevent the perpetration of rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against children by members of their respective forces, stressing the importance of accountability for those responsible for sexual and gender-based violence against children, and of providing non-discriminatory and comprehensive specialized services, health including mental health and psychosocial support, including sexual and reproductive health services, legal and livelihood support and services, to victims and survivors of sexual violence; 
• Gravely concerned at the increase in verified attacks on schools and hospitals, including due to the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, strongly condemning such attacks in violation of international law and calling upon all parties to comply with applicable international law and to respect the civilian character of schools and hospitals, including their personnel, as such, and to end and prevent attacks or threats of attacks against those institutions and their personnel, as well as the military use of schools and in that regard recalling the Safe Schools Declaration, endorsed by the Sudan in December 2015; noting with grave concern that an estimated 70 to 80 per cent of medical facilities in conflict-affected areas were non-functional during the reporting period as a result of the damage, destruction, military use or closure of hospitals over 3 million children did not have access to essential medical care by the end of the reporting period; noting further the effect that attacks on schools and their use have on the enjoyment of the right to education, also noting that attacks and looting of schools and school materials affected an estimated 19 million children’s access to education during the reporting period; 
• Strongly condemning the abduction of children, including for ransom, extortion and retaliation, for the purpose of sexual violence, for trafficking including for forced labour; urging all parties to cease the abduction of children and all violations and abuses committed against abducted children and to immediately release, without precondition, all abducted children and hand them over to relevant civilian child protection actors; 
• Gravely concerned at the deterioration of the humanitarian situation, as well as the stark increase in reported incidents of denial of humanitarian access, and strongly condemning incidents of denial of humanitarian access, including attacks on humanitarian and medical personnel, looting and or destruction of humanitarian goods, carjacking, attacks on water points and infrastructure,;  noting the decision made by the Sudanese authorities to allow humanitarian aid deliveries at select border-crossing and other humanitarian access routes, while expressing serious concern that access by the United Nations and other humanitarian partners to civilians, including children, was restricted during the reporting period, and that children were deprived of essential humanitarian assistance, and calling upon all parties and neighbouring countries to allow and facilitate safe, sustained, timely and unhindered humanitarian access, in accordance with international law and in line with Security Council resolution 2736 (2024), and recalling also the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, as well as the UN Guiding Principles adopted in the General Assembly resolution 46/482, to respect the exclusively humanitarian nature and impartiality of humanitarian aid and respect the work of all United Nations agencies and their humanitarian partners, without adverse distinction, and emphasizing the need to ensure the safety of and access for mine action operations; 
• Calling upon all parties to the conflict, including the newly listed parties, SAF, RSF and the Third Front-Tamazuj, to swiftly enter into a dialogue with the United Nations for the purpose of developing and implementing an action plan to end and prevent violations and abuses against children; also calling on all listed parties in the annexes to the report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict (S/2022/493) to designate focal points for the development, signature and implementation of such action plans with the United Nations, and further calling on those who have existing action plans and road maps with the United Nations on the protection of children, namely the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Abdelaziz al-Hilu and Malik Agar factions, to cooperate with the country task force on the swift and full implementation of these, urging SLA-AW, including all its factions, to engage with the United Nations on the development of an action plan; 

To community and religious leaders:

• Emphasizing the important role of community and religious leaders in strengthening the protection of children affected by armed conflict; 
• Urging them to strengthen community-level protection and to condemn publicly and continue to advocate ending and preventing violations and abuses against children, in particular those involving the recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, abductions, attacks and threats of attacks against schools and hospitals, and to engage with the United Nations and other relevant stakeholders to support the reintegration of children affected by armed conflict in their communities, including by raising awareness to avoid the stigmatization of such children.